Im trying to buy the missus a nice phone for her birthday. After reading several reviews Im hesitating between a couple of phones, the Nokia e72 and the Blackberry Bold. Any advice to push me one way or another or even give me a better idea would be very welcome. My thinking is as follows:

- She doesnt like touchscreens in general and finds the n900, android and iphone unnecessarily feature laden.
- Her priorities are phone, sms and email, hence the physical qwerty. I think she would also find chat and facebook integration very useful.
- Its strictly for personal use and not at all for business. The only email account she has is with yahoo.
- I would rather buy it unlocked. Is it true that a lot of the Blackberrys functionality is lost if this is done?

Any suggestions?

I know little about blackberrys, though from what I hear they are very good. The only suggestion I'd have for a QWERTY phone is maybe an N97 mini. I had an N97 for a while (at launch) and found it a bit clunky but I believe they are a lot better now, and the mini feels a lot nicer to the original. It's worth having a look anyway.

My vote for the Nokia E72 and not for the Blackberry Bold.

He asked for a portrait device...

I'd go with an E71. I doubt I'll ever get rid of mine. Could also take a look at a Palm Pixi if she wants good chat integration, S60 lacks it a bit - but has ample third party solutions for it.

Good Choice,

Facebook on the other hand, not very good on symbian, better on blackberry, but yes if u buy an unlocked blackberry there are some issues that u can fix in the way, anyway for someone like her very anoying, how important is facebook for her, my sys hated the iphone until i told her that it has the better facebook app, now she is in love w it, so i guess is up to her in the facebook area.

Email, BlackBerry is hardcore and she can have fun in this area using it, nothing is better than blackberry for e-mail and u become part of a new comunity w blackberry pin, this is actually a lot of fun, this one has a decent facebook app, so i gues this will be a decent choice (no for me though)

Now the E72, facebook app sux but u have the other choice Snaptu which actually works way better than the facebook for e72, mail is decent it have some issues w big pictures or big files if u use nokia messaging is a little better, but remember symbian is dificult to learn i gave one of my sisters my previous e71 she had a android before that, she was complaining all the time saying this phone is weird where is settings for this or that... bla bla bla... once she learned how to, she is in love w it, so i guess if she is not very into waist time learnign how to use your phone, this is not a choice, my friend has one and he complains that is slow... so i guess it may be true... dont feed nokia please, buy something else, give me time i will give you more reasons not to buy this one lmao!

right now i cant think of non touch screen phones... your location may help to know phones released over there (or here)

i would buy e71......a timeless beauty

Get her a nice fashionable feature phone. She'll love you for it.

For what its worth I ended up getting an e71. My thinking was that the white steel chasis was far more oooh-shiny than than that of the e72 which I found boring. I doubt she will notice any of the missing features.

The BIS business put me off Blackberry which I otherwise found superior. Im sure she will eventually move away from pay as you go but I didnt want to give her a bill for her birthday.